Salt Lake City Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a official warning from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you have violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain transactions which happened at your store that the USDA claims violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers with an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. This program is run on a nationwide level by the government.

This federal and the benefits that come with it are governed by the US Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What’s a SNAP Violation

Snap violations occur when a retail store violates any of the rules below.

The store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

The grocery store took SNAP benefits in exchange for nonfood items like alcohol, tobacco, or other goods.

Your store submitted false information on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more EBT food stamps than food sales during the same period.

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

Spodek Law Group has immense experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with no warning and can appear at any time. The charging letter will have allegations in it, but most letters will detail serious allegations, with an attachment of details. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, our lawyers take into their hands all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the notice of violation, the USDA may still decide that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send another letter which outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have 10 days to appeal the verdict. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This process is like a normal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there are many laws which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner must has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to check if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that receives a allegation letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Failure can result in negative consequences. The USDA is required by Congress to issue a disqualification for a period of up to 5 years. This can result in huge losses which are hard to recover from.